Blog Archive

The Brookings Institution is on an election-year push to hold the presidential candidates accountable for a more competitive metropolitan America. In a recent op-ed article in The Plain Dealer, Bruce Katz and Alan Berube of Brookings wrote:The...

Alan Borsuk's article in today's Journal Sentinel could lead one to believe that growth in the voucher program necessarily comes at the expense of MPS enrollment. However, our research shows the recent growth in voucher use comes mostly from...

Quality rating systems for child care are all the rage in the states. Hailed as systemic approaches to improving the quality of care, 14 states have some version of a rating program. Wisconsin is one of the states that does not have a rating system...

Could Milwaukee's relatively low immigration rate (7.7% foreign-born) be partially responsible for its stubbornly high crime rate? That is a new theory being tested by scholars and criminologists throughout the U.S.One study, was conducted by...

Income drain highlights Chicago’s value to M7Milwaukee region loses $1.3 billionA new Public Policy Forum study has found that households moving out of the Milwaukee region from 2001-2006 took with them $1.3 billion more in personal income than...

For the 11th annual Report Card on Charitable Giving, the Forum provides greater detail on contributions to Greater Milwaukee bellwether nonprofits over a longer period than in the past. Instead of looking at changes in six sectors from year to year...

Revenue-sharing agreements among local counties are usually developed to benefit both jurisdictions and are usually true agreements, one would hope.Not in Ohio. Weighted representation on Northeast Ohio's metropolitan planning organization (the Ohio...

Region’s small-city schools showingweaknesses of big-city schoolsSchools in southeastern Wisconsin’s smaller cities, like Delavan, Cudahy, and Whitewater, are beginning to show the same kinds of stress of schools in larger cities like Milwaukee,...

Each year, the Public Policy Forum releases an analysis of Milwaukee County's proposed budget. This year's brief can be found here.What follows is the concluding statement from our 2008 budget brief: The single greatest opportunity for the county's...

As you've likely heard, Wisconsin has the worst black-white achievement gap in the nation. Black students in our state are further behind their white classmates than in any other state when it comes to reading. The only thing more troubling is that...